This is the first day of the unit on Ecology where students will learn the basis of Ecology, what it means, how Ecologists study the environment, and important environmental factors involved. Students will develop a base of knowledge about ecology that they will build on each day for the remainder of the unit. Students will be presented with a powerpoint defining key terms such as biotic/ abiotic factors, how organisms obtain energy, producers/ consumers, and examples of each. Students will then participate in an activity that depicts the levels of organization within an ecosystem (biosphere, biome, etc..). This activity will demonstrate how each level is organizationally higher than the last and includes everything below it, and will also give examples of how each level is defined, organized, and what it includes. The students will begin a worksheet in class comparing biotic (living) and abiotic (non-living) factors of an environment and will have to finish this for homework. Throughout the lesson I will ask questions that require the students to relate the new material to old, and draw connections between the material and themselves. Examples of such questions are included further down this page.
Objectives:
Students will be able to define primary producers.
Students will compare and contrast photosynthetic and chemosynthetic producers.
Students will be able to describe how consumers obtain energy and nutrients.
Students will be able to identify the biotic and abiotic factors of an environment and differentiate between them.
Materials
Fill in the blank notes
Projector linked to the computer to show powerpoint slides
Biosphere activity
Colored pencils and scissors (for the biosphere activity)
Venn diagram homework on biotic vs. abiotic factors
Links to Resources
Biosphere Activity-
This picture shows a student example of my original idea. Each flap would read a different biome, with an explanation and examples within the flap.
Safety Issues
Use scissors as directed and only cut paper
If walking with scissors, carry them gripping the closed sharp portion pointing towards the ground.
Instruction
In this 50 minute period the students will be presented with a powerpoint and they will fill in the blanks in their note outlines.
(=15 minutes)
The students will then participate in a biosphere activity. This activity will label each level of organization starting with a single organism and ending with the entire biosphere. The students will take notes within each flap of what that level of organization means and examples of each (i.e. a population is a group of the same species, ex: a herd of elephants, a flock of geese, etc..)
(=23 minutes)
I will direct the students to finish working, put their activity in their notebooks, and cleanup all materials.
(=2 minutes)
I will then close the lesson by reviewing important key terms and sum up all that we learned in Day 1.
(7 minutes)
Last, I will present the homework and orally explain the directions. The homework assignment is due the following day and will be checked for completion as part of their homework grade. I will distribute it to the students on their way out of the classroom to make sure every student receives one and understands their task.
(3 minutes)
Opening
"For those of you who ate breakfast this morning, what are some things that you ate?
Where did these items come from? (Point out if they had milk and cereal the student has already depended on plants such as grains in their cereal, a cow for it's milk, the earth if they ate out of a porcelain bowl, etc...) Now ask if we did not have septic systems and used nature as our bathroom, what would happen to our waste? Would it stay there forever? (No, other microorganisms would break it down and get food from our waste) These are some ways we rely on, and our environment in turn relies on us.
SAY: "Today we will start a unit on Ecology, or the study of relationships that exist between organisms and their environment."
Learning Activities
Fill in the blank notes so students can follow along more easily as I present the information via powerpoint. This way the student can listen while they write and process the information if they are not hurrying to write down every single piece of information before the slide switches. I feel this is important for both advanced students so they are able to have proper notes AND be engaged in the lesson or discussion of the terms, and the students with special needs because it doesn't require them to have to write out and entire page of notes which may be difficult for a student with a literacy/writing disability.
A Biosphere activity that shows the relationships between the levels of organization between a single species and the growing amount of groups it makes up all the way up the scale to an entire biosphere, or our planet. This activity requires students to make a flip book sort of object where each flap is labeled with an organizational level, starting with an individual organism and working up through species, population, community, ecosystem, biome, and biosphere. Within each flap the student will have to give a definition of each term in their own words. This activity is hands on and the way the paper is set up as a flap system, helps the student internalize how each term is related (i.e. an individual organism is a part of a species, which form communities and make up a population, etc...). Hopefully this system furthers the understanding of the relationship among these terms rather than just memorizing their definitions.
Throughout the notes I will provide oral dissections of words to help students understand what they mean.For instance, when they are presented with the information that an autotroph is an organism that produces energy from the sun or chemicals I will break the word up into auto- (what are some other words that begin with auto? -automatic, -autotune What do these words have in common? Automatic gears shift by themselves, autotune is a song that tunes itself to the correct pitch ...the term auto means self doing. If i told you -troph came from the Greek word "to feed", what do you think autotroph means? Self-feeder. Autotrophs do not need to consume a material to get their food, they take the energy from either the sun or chemicals to produce carbohydrates, which would have otherwise been produced from eating, and which we know is used by the organism as energy.
ASK: Humans eat food for their energy because they have a mouth and a digestive system. Can anyone give an example of an organism that is lacking these specialized features for eating such as a mouth? How does this organism obtain energy? What is the main energy source is uses to do this? So this organism is an example of..... (example student answer: a plant, doesn't have a mouth, performs photosynthesis to create carbohydrates which is used by the plant for energy. This makes a photosynthetic plant an autotroph.
I will also break down the words biotic and abiotic using examples like Biology is the study of life, so biotic factors are those that are living. What does it mean when two things are symmetrical? (They are the same) what then does the term Asymmetrical mean? (Not symmetrical) Knowing this, what can you infer an abiotic factor is? (A non-living factor, or a factor that is not alive).
How do these two different factors affect each other? Discuss how non-living things effect living thing and how living things affect other living things.
(Breaking down these terms will aid in the process of storing new material into the long term memory because it isn't simple memorization, it gives meaning to the word that should hopefully make sense. This will help during quizzes and tests when the students are asked to differentiate between a biotic and an abiotic factor. Since the terms sound so similar, students may remember one is living and one isn't but forget which is which, something that could cost them points on an exam. This method should hopefully allow them to think back and say, hey, symmetrical things match and asymmetrical mean they don't, so maybe abiotic is the one that ISN'T alive. These are the small teaching details that could later have big impacts in student retention and regurgitation.)
Closing
"Thinking back to all we have learned about consumers and producers, where do you think humans fit in? "
(we are mostly omnivores, and some herbivores- both are a type of consumer) This will be referenced in the energy flow lesson in day 2 to see analyze why humans have been so successful on earth (we're at the top of the food energy pyramid).
Ask: "How do you think life on earth would be different if we weren't consumers?"
(If we were producers we would "sunbathe" more frequently, there would be no such thing as restaurants, grocery stores, food farms, or food in general. Life on earth would be drastically different.
Point out how our interactions with the environment and other living organisms within it shape our lives.
Assessment
Throughout the lesson I informally ask students questions that foster deeper thinking and their answers provide insight for me to gage their understanding of the material.
Their homework is to be collected to informally asses their understanding between abiotic and biotic factors. If many students hand in in-proficient homework, the opening of day two will review these factors and their differences more deeply than just a basic review that was already planned.
Unit: Ecology
Title:
What is Ecology?Lesson Overview:
This is the first day of the unit on Ecology where students will learn the basis of Ecology, what it means, how Ecologists study the environment, and important environmental factors involved. Students will develop a base of knowledge about ecology that they will build on each day for the remainder of the unit. Students will be presented with a powerpoint defining key terms such as biotic/ abiotic factors, how organisms obtain energy, producers/ consumers, and examples of each. Students will then participate in an activity that depicts the levels of organization within an ecosystem (biosphere, biome, etc..). This activity will demonstrate how each level is organizationally higher than the last and includes everything below it, and will also give examples of how each level is defined, organized, and what it includes. The students will begin a worksheet in class comparing biotic (living) and abiotic (non-living) factors of an environment and will have to finish this for homework. Throughout the lesson I will ask questions that require the students to relate the new material to old, and draw connections between the material and themselves. Examples of such questions are included further down this page.Objectives:
Materials
Links to Resources
Biosphere Activity-This picture shows a student example of my original idea. Each flap would read a different biome, with an explanation and examples within the flap.
Safety Issues
Instruction
In this 50 minute period the students will be presented with a powerpoint and they will fill in the blanks in their note outlines.(=15 minutes)
The students will then participate in a biosphere activity. This activity will label each level of organization starting with a single organism and ending with the entire biosphere. The students will take notes within each flap of what that level of organization means and examples of each (i.e. a population is a group of the same species, ex: a herd of elephants, a flock of geese, etc..)
(=23 minutes)
I will direct the students to finish working, put their activity in their notebooks, and cleanup all materials.
(=2 minutes)
I will then close the lesson by reviewing important key terms and sum up all that we learned in Day 1.
(7 minutes)
Last, I will present the homework and orally explain the directions. The homework assignment is due the following day and will be checked for completion as part of their homework grade. I will distribute it to the students on their way out of the classroom to make sure every student receives one and understands their task.
(3 minutes)
Opening
Learning Activities
- Throughout the notes I will provide oral dissections of words to help students understand what they mean.For instance, when they are presented with the information that an autotroph is an organism that produces energy from the sun or chemicals I will break the word up into auto- (what are some other words that begin with auto? -automatic, -autotune What do these words have in common? Automatic gears shift by themselves, autotune is a song that tunes itself to the correct pitch ...the term auto means self doing. If i told you -troph came from the Greek word "to feed", what do you think autotroph means? Self-feeder. Autotrophs do not need to consume a material to get their food, they take the energy from either the sun or chemicals to produce carbohydrates, which would have otherwise been produced from eating, and which we know is used by the organism as energy.
- ASK: Humans eat food for their energy because they have a mouth and a digestive system. Can anyone give an example of an organism that is lacking these specialized features for eating such as a mouth? How does this organism obtain energy? What is the main energy source is uses to do this? So this organism is an example of..... (example student answer: a plant, doesn't have a mouth, performs photosynthesis to create carbohydrates which is used by the plant for energy. This makes a photosynthetic plant an autotroph.
- I will also break down the words biotic and abiotic using examples like Biology is the study of life, so biotic factors are those that are living. What does it mean when two things are symmetrical? (They are the same) what then does the term Asymmetrical mean? (Not symmetrical) Knowing this, what can you infer an abiotic factor is? (A non-living factor, or a factor that is not alive).
- How do these two different factors affect each other? Discuss how non-living things effect living thing and how living things affect other living things.
(Breaking down these terms will aid in the process of storing new material into the long term memory because it isn't simple memorization, it gives meaning to the word that should hopefully make sense. This will help during quizzes and tests when the students are asked to differentiate between a biotic and an abiotic factor. Since the terms sound so similar, students may remember one is living and one isn't but forget which is which, something that could cost them points on an exam. This method should hopefully allow them to think back and say, hey, symmetrical things match and asymmetrical mean they don't, so maybe abiotic is the one that ISN'T alive. These are the small teaching details that could later have big impacts in student retention and regurgitation.)Closing
- "Thinking back to all we have learned about consumers and producers, where do you think humans fit in? "
(we are mostly omnivores, and some herbivores- both are a type of consumer) This will be referenced in the energy flow lesson in day 2 to see analyze why humans have been so successful on earth (we're at the top of the food energy pyramid).- Ask: "How do you think life on earth would be different if we weren't consumers?"
(If we were producers we would "sunbathe" more frequently, there would be no such thing as restaurants, grocery stores, food farms, or food in general. Life on earth would be drastically different.Assessment
Homework
Additional Notes